Nintendo All-Stars Chess
} |developer = |publisher = |genre = Strategy |platforms = |media = V² Disc, Nintendo Switch cartridage |image = |released = March 27th, 20YB |ratings = }} Nintendo All-Stars Chess is a strategy game developed by Toroko and published by Nintendo. It was published for The V² and Nintendo Switch. The game is based off the game of chess, although it also features a checkers mode. Players choose a faction of chess pieces that are based off various Nintendo franchises and can play a normal game of chess or chose to replace pieces with Hero Pieces from various Nintendo characters, which add a new dimension to the chess playing game. These Hero Pieces are based off the fairy pieces that sometimes appear in chess and have a long legacy in the game. Modes Chess Chess is the main mode of the game. Two players chose a faction of chess pieces to use in the game and then face off in the chess game. Various rules can be set and players can also swap out pieces for Hero Pieces, which have wildly different functions. Checkers Checkers is the much simpler game that follows the rules of Checkers. You can chose any Nintendo character that appears in the game as your avatar in this game, although they are merely aesthetic. Rules of Chess There are 64 tiles (8x8 grid) and each player gets a total of 16 pieces. These include one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen and the least powerful the pawn. The goal of the game is to get to a checkmate. This is done through capturing the king piece or making them unable to move further. King The King can move once in any direction on any given turn and cannot move in a direction that allows him to be captured. The King has a unique strategy involving Rooks that is known as Castling, in which the king moves two squares toward one of its rooks and then the rook is placed on the square over which the King crossed. Castling is allowed only when neither the King nor the castling Rook previously moved, no squares between them are occupied, the king is not in check, and the King will not move across or end its movement on a square that is under enemy attack. Uniquely, any Hero Piece can take on the title of King when they replace the piece. This acts a stack to their movement and powers, although this only means that when they are captured the game is lost. Queen The Queen is considered the most powerful base piece in chess, and for a good reason. The Queen can move in any of the eight directions (north, east, south, west, and all diagonals in between) and across the entire board if allowed. She has to stop near occupied spaces with more than two pieces in her direction. The queen captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece sits. Rook The Rook is similar to the Queen in that it can move as far it wants, but only in the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west). As with captures by other pieces, the Rook captures by occupying the square on which the enemy piece sits. The Rook also participates, with the King, in a special move called Castling. The Rook is relatively useless at the start of the game due to the amount of places that are occupied, limiting it's movement greatly. However, in the endgame it becomes much more powerful. Bishop The Bishop has no restrictions in distance for each move, but is limited to diagonal movement. This is similar to the Rook in terms of how it works, but only in the diagonal directions. As with captures by other pieces, the Bishop captures by occupying the square on which the enemy piece resided. It tends to be a more underrated piece due to it's less-useful movement. Knight The Knight utilizes a very different movement that is unusual among chess pieces. It moves to a square that is two squares away horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The complete move therefore looks like the letter "L". Unlike all other standard chess pieces, the knight can "jump over" all other pieces (of either color) to its destination square. The Knight's power to jump over pieces makes it interestingly powerful during the beginning of the game, although it's unorthodox movement makes it less useful compared to more straightforward pieces. Pawn The Pawn is by far the weakest piece in chess and is the most plentiful out of all the pieces in chess, with each player getting an entire row of pawns at the start of the game. Pawns cannot move backwards, and can only move once in a given direction. At the start of the game, they can move twice. When they reach the end of the board on the opponent's side, they can be promoted to become another piece. When playing with Hero Pieces, this includes Hero Pieces. Chess Factions Basic White Basic Black Mushroom Kingdom Bowser's Kingdom Hyrule Ganon's Forces Classic Mode Subspace Army Retro Ensemble Hero Pieces Mario Series Zelda Series Super Smash Bros. Series Gallery NintendoAllStarsChessBoxart.png|Boxart for the Switch Version NintendoAllStarsChessLogo.png|Logo Trivia *Credits: ** - Code basis for tables ** - Coding help *The game's hero pieces are primarily inspired by fairy chess pieces, which are unorthodox chess pieces not used in traditional chess but may be used in a variant of it. Some of these chess pieces were created with the fact it was a video game in mind, such as Rosalina's Hero Piece, which would be hard to keep track of in a real chess game. You can read more about fairy chess pieces here. **During development, it seems that hero pieces would have had icons inspired by how fairy chess pieces are usually depicted, as an upside down pawn can be found in the game code. In the final product, sprites and icons were utilized instead to depict these hero icons, giving each a unique look. **Hero pieces were also inspired by DOTA and real-time strategy games, which sometimes utilize super-powered hero characters in addition to generic mooks as part of a player's controllable army. Category:Fan Games Category:Nintendo Switch Games Category:V2 Games Category:Strategy Games Category:Chess Games Category:Nintendo All-Stars Chess Category:Toroko Category:Nintendo Games Category:Crossovers Category:Crossover Games